Battles Mirrored

I reviewed Battles’ Mirrored today for New Release Tuesday, and if you have any interest at all in what I said, feel free to take a look.

The band’s ability to work outside genre classification is probably the most important offering Mirrored can boast long-term. There’s not a doubt in this writer’s mind that the trend (soon to be replacing this brutal and seemingly never-ending wave of banal baroque chamber pop) we’ll soon be mired in is some mix of post-prog jazz, a rejection of genre so interesting, we hardly notice the influences until we struggle to describe what we’re hearing. Bands like Mew, Xiu Xiu, The Berg Sans Nipple and Dungen all sort of lean this direction, and their success lies in the fact that you might never think to group them by sound. Sure, there’s a certain way in which all of this relates back to progressive rock in the 70’s, perhaps sugared with the pop and dance trends of the same era, never afraid to be equal parts drama and diversion. It’s undoubtedly difficult without ever being inaccessible.